


GNAW

by almadeamla, Book_Wyrm



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Animal Death, Blood and Injury, Cannibalism, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Geographical Isolation, Gore, Graphic Description of Corpses, M/M, Non-Canonical Character Death, Starvation, mention of past infidelity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:41:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25860775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almadeamla/pseuds/almadeamla, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Book_Wyrm/pseuds/Book_Wyrm
Summary: 1983. The Appalachian Mountains. Ranch owner Rick Grimes has endured a long streak of bad luck since moving his family north from Georgia—and with winter rolling in and an animal on the prowl, his luck is about to turn from bad to deadly.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes, Rick Grimes/Shane Walsh
Comments: 24
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Book_Wyrm's Notes: 
> 
> The spooky ranch AU absolutely no one asked for.
> 
> almadeamla and I have actually been kicking around this concept for a little over a year, and now it's actually, really _happening_ , and I’m beyond excited to be collaborating with one of my all-time favorite authors.
> 
> At the risk of spoiling some plot points, I’d ask everyone to please take a look over the tags, where I’ve tried to warn for just about anything that may make you want to hit the back button. What we have planned for this fic is miles and miles outside of my usual comfort zone—almadeamla, of course, was already out there, presumably sipping margaritas and wondering when everyone else would join the party—and might be outside of yours, too.

Just when Daryl’s about to suggest he and Merle abandon their hunt for the day and pick it up come morning, his boot crunches into bloody snow.

He holds up a hand and Merle stops in the middle of a round-about story about a bar fight he’d done a little time for last spring. Merle doesn’t ask questions, just steps up to look at what Daryl’s found. There’s a long red trail dotted and winding between the trees, disappearing at places where the snow gives way to mud in patches of fading sunlight. Merle seems to consider this for a long while, looking at the trail, looking up into the trees. He lets the muzzle of his rifle fall back towards the earth.

“No tracks,” he says. “Ain’t that bear. Probably a hawk flying over here with a field mouse.”

“Lot of blood for a mouse,” Daryl points out. He sniffs and the cold stabs the inside of his nose like icicles. Smell of ice in the wind. Another snowstorm is coming.

The pale sun starts to sink below the treeline, casting long shadows on the snow. Even if that blood trail counts for anything, the hunt’s a lost cause now. Without daylight it’ll be impossible to pick tracks even if they do come across some. The mountains are usually dead by the first sign of winter, animals retreating to their dens, snow swallowing up any life. Between the pines there are dead trees with spindly naked branches, granite stone outcroppings blanketed with wet, rotting leaves.

Daryl kneels and touches his fingertips to the bloodied snow, hoping to feel the hard texture of ice crystals made from snow melting underneath a foot. Nothing. Merle’s probably right about that hawk, anyway. He straightens up, scanning one more time for tracks. They’d been on the trail of a late-season bear earlier, a huge one, from the prints it made, but they lost it crossing the creek bed and haven’t caught up since. To Daryl’s way of thinking the whole day’s been a waste of time. The whole week. They ought to be further south by now; there’s more game down below the snowline, and more people who’ll pay for it. But Merle’s insistent there’s something worth hunting up here—says he can feel it.

“Oughtta start heading back,” he says. “Don’t wanna freeze up here.”

He’s not expecting Merle to stick a hot, spit-covered finger in his ear. Daryl roars and launches himself away, the force of his own inertia sending him tumbling down the hillside. He ends up on his back staring up at the purpling sky, and hears Merle laugh and call down to him, “There! Got ya plenty warmed up!”

“Fuckin’ asshole,” Daryl mutters, clamoring to his feet, rubbing furiously at his ear. A lump of snow slips past the collar of his jacket and down the front of his shirt. He grasps the collar to shake it loose, and his hand comes away bloody.

He turns to look where he’s landed.

This time it’s not a trail; _pools_ of blood lie at the base of the hill. The snow here is disturbed, too, not by a single set of tracks, but a whole mess of them churned around and mixed up and indistinguishable from each other. Daryl calls up to Merle to join him, keeping his voice pitched as low as he can, and readies his crossbow. He can see what looks like old claw marks in the snow, and boot prints.

Up ahead’s a cluster of trees, and beyond that’s a small opening, just wide enough for something shorter than a man to crawl into. It’s no den; nothing’s made any attempt to conceal it. Cave, must be. The mountain side’s full of them. Before the town—if Dust Creek can be called a town—the people that came along with it, dozens of cougar and bear made the caves their winter homes. Used to be easy to come up on a big, fat black bear hibernating.

A chilly sense of uneasiness prickles Daryl’s gut. He braces his crossbow against his shoulder and takes a moment to smell the air. He catches a whiff of wood smoke that might be days old, and something else, something bad, but nothing animal. Blood in the snow, tracks, no scent of a kill. No bear scat or tree marks or hair.

Without waiting for Merle to reach him, he edges closer. There are broken branches leading to the cave, scattered pine needles. Something’s been this way recently. Behind a tree is a pile of clothes: jeans and a flannel from the looks of it, folded up nice and neat.

Whatever’s been through here was not a bear, not a cat. Daryl runs his finger along the edge of the denim. It’s frozen over; been out here a long time.

“The hell’s all this?” Merle has caught up. His rifle is raised again.

“Shh,” Daryl says. “Heard something. Listen.”

No birds, no animal sounds. Just an odorless, frozen, insatiate wind.

Daryl glances back; Merle is looking increasingly worried, which, on his face, takes the form of annoyance. They exchange quick, furious glances: Daryl jerks his head towards the cave, eyebrows raised, and Merle jerks his head away from it, scowling. Daryl ignores him. There’s something here, he knows it. Adrenaline’s made him warm again. He tastes the tang of metal in his mouth. He starts to move but before he can take a proper step Merle shoves in front of him and puts out his arm, stopping him in his tracks.

“Quit it,” Merle huffs, breath heavy with cheap whiskey. “What the hell’s got into you?”

Daryl points to the pile of clothes and the mess of branches. Merle takes it in at a glance, angling his body so he doesn’t have to turn away from the cave. 

“Yeah. I see that shit. Now can we just get the hell out of—”

Daryl sidesteps around Merle and continues forward. His boots crunch into the ice. Mud underneath, gray-brown slush. Nothing to see at the mouth of the cave; he draws in another deep breath of it. Wood smoke again—boughs, green ones, too wet to really burn.

He stops and digs his lighter out, flicking it twice before it catches. He takes one last look at Merle’s face: screwed up in anger, his eyes darting from the forest behind them to the blackness up ahead. He’s right, after all. No sense in this. But Daryl’s gaze falls again on that pile of clothes. Someone had taken care to fold them right along the seams.

He takes a deep breath, holds the small, shivering flame out in front of him, and steps into the cave.


	2. Chapter 2

_ Three weeks earlier _

_ November, 1983 _

_ Dust Creek, West Virginia _

When Shane finally drags himself out into the late November sunshine, the pounding in his head—the drumbeat of last night’s leftover bourbon—is bad enough he considers going back to bed. There’s no one here to bear witness to his shitty work ethic except for an anemic screech owl on the fence post, and the dead magpie pinned beneath its talons.

It’s mid-morning, well past the time for owls. This one must’ve been hungry enough to stay on the hunt longer than usual. The overtime paid off, apparently. The owl’s beak dips, comes up bloody. A few downy feathers flutter up and fall like early snow in the dead tangles of hawthorn and chokecherry brush around the fence.

Owls do that—eat other birds—more than Shane realized. He had a girlfriend once who collected anything with an owl on it. Shirts, necklaces, key chains, coffee mugs. Even had a pair of panties with a little blue cartoon owl on the ass, its eyes closed, cutesy lettering over it reading,  _ Night Owl! _ Used to lie around the house wearing nothing else at the height of summer. It was the outfit she’d been wearing, unfortunately enough, for their last real conversation. 

“ _ You _ ,” she’d said, half laughing, “packing up and going to live out on a  _ ranch _ ? You fall and hit your head on something? You won’t be able to get back here soon enough—”

Shane had taken issue with her tone. Turns out she was right, in a way—Shane’s not on that ranch anymore, hasn’t been for about eight months. Getting away from the ranch turned out to be easier than getting away from Dust Creek, and a hell of a lot easier than getting back home to Georgia. He figures he’ll have enough saved up from whatever odd jobs he can take to afford the move back in just about a year. Not soon enough by a long shot.

Anyway, owls—they’ll eat just about anything.

This one, intent on its meal, is only half-interested in Shane getting started on his morning work. Today he’s sawing boards to patch up a neighbor’s barn. The owl’s head swivels towards him at the first sound of the blade on wood, considering—then it goes back to its magpie.

**:::**

The next time the owl looks up, it’s at the pickup rolling to a stop on the dirt road, a plume of dust trailing behind it.

Shane knows that truck, and he keeps his head down. The owl, finished picking at its dinner, takes flight in a burst of bloodied feathers, as though it has enough sense to know to avoid the coming conversation. Shane feels a twinge of envy. He wouldn’t mind being able to take off like that himself. 

The engine makes a choking sound as it dies, and the truck’s metal frame squeals as it settles on its shocks. The door opens. Shuts loud as an axe falling. Footsteps in the gravel: an inevitable, deliberate crunch, crunch.

“Not working on another windmill, are you?” Rick calls.

Shane freezes. A burst of anger swells in his chest and he has to fight down the urge to throw his saw. To launch himself at Rick like the owl set into its magpie and flay Rick down to bone.

He breathes the way the physical therapist showed him. One long inhale, then out nice and slow. He sets the board he’s just finished down with the others he’s cut and grabs a new one. Rick is counting on him to make the conversation easy, fill the silence. Shane’s done caring about Rick Grimes’ comfort.

Rick tries again, moving closer, “I thought you were heading back home.”

“That’s the plan,” Shane says. He looks up at the truck, not at Rick, considering his response. The old Ford’s in worse condition than the last time he saw it; shouldn’t have been able to make the trip down, the shape it’s in—how many miles did the old clunker make it before Rick remembered to change the oil?—but like always, Rick’s unearned, unfair good luck holds out.

In the end Shane decides to be just friendly enough to avoid an argument, just friendly enough to get Rick back on the road. “Next summer this place’ll be in the rearview, I reckon,” he says. “You here for something?”

The effort’s wasted: Rick seems to have been expecting a friendlier greeting. He looks irritated, and there it is—Shane knows every stage of that expression, could have made money betting on it. The way Rick’s jaw sets and the telltale tilt of his head. Shane could’ve called the rest of it, too. Rick is wearing the same boots he was wearing eight months ago, the same hat, the same shirt Shane’s seen on him a hundred times, though the shirt has faded and the hat has lost some of its form and the boots are badly scuffed. Probably still the nicest outfit he owns.

Shane gets the sense Rick’s taking in his appearance the same way. Looking for what’s still the same underneath everything that’s changed. He deliberately turns his shoulder and goes back to sawing.

The gravel crunches at his back again. “You have a minute to talk?”

“Matter of fact I don’t, Rick.”

“It won’t take long. I thought we could take a walk down to the bend of the river and back. Not far.” He can picture the exact face Rick’s making behind him. The earnest grit to his mouth, the turned up eyebrow. Shane might have smiled at Rick Grimes’ predictable nature once upon a time, but now it twists his stomach worse than his hangover. This whole conversation is making him feel sick.

“Some of us got real jobs, man. Can’t afford to spend all our days playin’ cowboy.” Shane pushes the saw through the board hard, too hard, and feels the wood crack underneath his hand. Well, shit. Damaged materials come out of his pay.

“Might want to take it easy,” Rick suggests. His unasked-for advice makes Shane mad all over again.

“Go on then and leave me to it,” Shane snarls, meaner than he intended. “I gotta get these measured, sawed, and hauled down to the Johansen place before dark.”

Rick eyes the pile of wood still left for Shane to finish. They both know there’s no getting it done on time. Still, Shane would like to make an effort. Every day’s work he gets done is one less day he’s here. If he tries, he can reward himself with the last of the whiskey when he crawls into bed tonight, hair flecked with pine dust, his leg swollen and sore.

“Shane, please.”

Shane doesn’t know what to make of Rick asking so politely. He was prepared for an argument— hell, even a few punches—but Rick begging makes the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Something heavy has descended on the both of them. A wind comes down from the mountains, aching cold.

The silence hangs so long it turns biting. Rick stands listless, the force of his gaze boring into Shane’s shoulders. Shane sets down the saw.

:::

A breeze carried off the river smells of icy water and ancient, damp stone. Shane picks his way over uneven granite stones and silt, conscious of the dull growing pain in his leg, of his uneven and laborious gait. Eight months and three surgeries later and this is as good as it gets. And to make it just that much worse, Rick notices—of course Rick notices—and awkwardly slows his pace. As they come up to an enormous driftwood log, faded to the color of bone, he pauses and  _ actually holds out his arm to Shane _ , like he’s escorting a date to prom.

Shane elbows past him. He makes it over the log with considerable effort. He’s sweating by the time he manages to straighten out his bad leg again, hot under the collar despite the chill. Rick watches, eyes narrowed, the corners of his mouth turned down, offended. 

Shane would break his leg all over again before he’ll put himself in Rick’s debt.

“You had something to talk about?” he says.

He hears Rick let out a long sigh, as if he thinks Shane is being needlessly difficult. “Andrea mentioned…” he begins, then stops, and starts again: “You heard Morales and his family moved away?”

“I heard. Good for them.” Plenty smart, to get away while they could. Away from these mountains and the ranch and the ranch’s bad luck.

Granite gravel shifts and crunches under their boots. A yellow leaf drifts by on the river.

Rick seems to realize he’s not getting anywhere with small talk and edges a little closer to the point. “You heard we got some kind of animal problem in the area, too?”

“Always some kind of animal problem around here.”

“This one’s different. A bear’s gotten a taste for cattle.”

“Well, who doesn’t love a good steak.”

Rick stops walking. “It took a horse last night,” he says, a little sharply, like this bear of his deserves some respect. “We thought it’d stop with the winter coming on, but there’s no waiting it out anymore. We need to track it down.”

“And you want me for some kind of hunting party you’re putting together—Is that what this is?” Shane gestures down at his bum leg, the soft brace the doctor says can come off in a few more weeks, once the tissue around the knee’s finished healing. “Don’t think I’ll be much good for that.”

Rick shakes his head. “I’ve got that part of it handled. Me, Andrea, new ranch hand—you haven’t met him—we’re planning to head out tomorrow.” To his credit, he holds eye contact as he says, “I need someone to stay with Carl and Judith while I’m away, in case that bear doubles back.”

A twitch of movement flashes across the river. A hare, her brown coat spotted with white, ducks back into her burrow, a fully white kitten close behind her.

“You named her Judith?” Shane says at last.

Rick blinks, like the question has startled him.

“Carl came up with it,” he says. “After a teacher he had, back home.” He turns away, making a show like he’s looking for something down the river, and the turn puts his face beneath the shadow of his hat, makes it harder to read anything in his expression. His voice, when he speaks again, is carefully neutral. “You know I wouldn’t be here looking for your help if I had anyone else to ask.”

“You got plenty of people to ask, Rick. Dale still lives on the property, don’t he? Or are you taking  _ him _ out bear hunting with you?”

Rick clearly hasn’t thought this out, hasn’t planned having to do anything more than show up in his nicest shirt and say  _ I need your help _ — He’s used to getting his way, spoiled only child who’s never been passed over for anything a day in his life, always got exactly what he wanted for Christmas. He’s silent for a long while before he concedes, “Carl’s gotten pretty good at slipping away when Dale’s not looking. But then I figure you already knew that.”

“How’s he holding up?”

“Still pissed off.” Rick stares out over the water, the bend in the river where an old beaver dam is sinking into the mud. The river runs across the mound of wood and vegetation like a pane of glass. Rick picks up a rock, holds it in his palm awhile, contemplating the shape before he skips it. Either the rock isn’t flat enough or Rick didn’t get a good spin on it, because it sinks into the water after one feeble hop with a glug, and Rick sighs. “I don’t mind him coming here to see you,” he says, and Shane hides a scoff. “It’s the miles in between I worried about. I don’t want him running all over the countryside with this animal out there somewhere. If you’re already at the ranch, he’s got no reason to leave.”

Shane runs a hand over the back of his neck. The idea of setting foot back on the ranch has him uneasy. He had never felt settled there. It was always  _ wrong _ , somehow, no matter how many head of cattle they had, no matter how much grazing land they cleared. Shane’s Grandma Jean used to say the earth could sour and sour folks right along with it. It’s an old rancher’s superstition, one he never lent much credence to, but he almost believed it, living there.

Apparently Rick senses his hesitation. “You wouldn’t be doing it just out of the kindness of your heart, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he says. “I can pay you.”

“You sure got one hell of a way of asking for help.”

“I don’t know how long we’ll be out there. Shouldn’t be any more than a week. I can pay you two thousand dollars, for however long it takes.”

A gust of wind cuts down the river, flinging the tops of riverside aspens back and forth and setting the yellowed leaves to whispering loudly amongst themselves.

“Thought times were pretty tough at the ranch,” Shane says, when it dies down.

“Two thousand,” Rick repeats. “Add to that whatever you’ve got saved, and you’ll be about ready to get back to Georgia, come spring.”

“You’re good for it?” Shane asks, his tone bordering on incredulous. “I seen the books, man. You sure the check’s gonna clear?”

Rick looks back out at the river again. “When Lori…” He stops and clears his throat. It’s a long time before he can continue. “There was an insurance payout.”

“It’s that serious, then?” Has to be, if Rick’s offering what little nest egg he has. There are repairs that could be made with that money, new breeding stock for the herd that could be purchased. That’s the start of a college fund Rick’s set to give to Shane.

Shane paces a few steps away, kicks up a bit of sand with his toe. He would’ve said yes without the money, but the money’s Rick’s way of keeping distance between them. No favors here—just employer and employee.

Probably better that way, come to think of it.

“Alright,” Shane says. “Two thousand.”

Rick adjusts the brim of his hat, a gesture which somehow manages to convey both gratitude and superiority, but when he says, “Thank you,” it’s so sincere and straight-on that Shane has to look away. 

He tilts his head back to look up at the far mountain tops and after a moment he feels Rick’s gaze finally leave him. The wind’s picking up. A new cold there, a bite to it. Up above, low grey clouds whisk past dark peaks. On the riverbank, the aspen trees shiver and sway again.

“Looks like it’s starting to freeze here,” Rick says.


End file.
